Archive for the 'Jeff Tweedy' Tag Under 'Soundcheck' Category

“This is my first solo tour in six years,” Jeff Tweedy apologetically mentioned Friday night. Moments before that, he had snapped at an audience member mid-song, though not as directly as he would have liked, as the darkened Granada Theatre in Santa Barbara allowed him no view of the crowd.

“We’re about a week and a half in and I was just thinking: ‘You’ve really grown up a lot since the last time out,’” he continued, playing his dry, self-deprecating humor for laughs. “But now we know how to get to me: single, out-of-time claps at the end of each line.”

This is not the first time something like this has happened to Wilco’s frontman. If you type “Jeff Tweedy ye” into Google, the search engine will auto-complete to find stories about the songwriter yelling at audiences. If you type “Jeff Tweedy pu,” you’ll get to read about a physical altercation.

Of course, this is painting Tweedy as something he is not: unreasonable. Far from it. His reaction to rude attendees is what should happen more often, and having successfully navigated the indie, folk and rock realms for more than 20 years has given the 46-year-old Chicagoan license to do what many of us wish someone would.

Jeff Tweedy: Local Wilco fanatics have been fretting since word surfaced Monday that the celebrated band’s frontman is heading west on a solo acoustic tour later this year, including four shows at L.A.’s remarkably intimate Largo at the Coronet, Dec. 15-16 and 18-19.

Why fretting? Because tickets, $40, will undoubtedly sell out faster than you can say Yankee Hotel Foxtrot when they go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. I suspect insane demand just might crash the venue’s site.

If time and travel costs are no bothers, you also can head north to see him in Davis (Dec. 10 at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts), San Francisco (Dec. 11-12 at the Fillmore) and Santa Barbara (Dec. 13 at the Granada). All of those also go on sale Friday.

George Strait: The country king has announced his ongoing two-year tour will be his last extensive outing, to be followed only by occasional shows. Seeing as he’s played Southern California only a few times during the past two decades, it’s a safe bet he won’t be back for a while after a string of nearby performances early next year: Jan. 31 at San Diego’s Valley View Casino Center, Feb. 1 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas and Feb. 8 at Staples Center in Los Angeles. Expect tickets to go on sale Sept. 27.

Before Saturday night's penultimate stop on the first-ever Americanarama tour, Wilco and My Morning Jacket – two of the most celebrated live bands of the past decade – hadn't played Orange County in a very long time. Outside of Coachella appearances neither group had even appeared on large stages in Southern California – the Greek or Gibson is as big as MMJ's headlining gigs have gotten, while Wilco finally headlined the Hollywood Bowl last September.

Both bands last played O.C. at a dramatically smaller venue, House of Blues Anaheim. Jim James and MMJ were there in January 2007, and Wilco five years before that, going back to a packed March 2002 show at the Mouse House just as enthusiasm started brewing for its turning-point fourth album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

You can count the combined number of times these groups have been here on one hand. The Jackets' only other appearance was in February 2002, opening for forgotten indie-rock supergroup Eyes Adrift at the Galaxy (now the Observatory) in Santa Ana, two years before key guitarist Carl Broemel joined. Wilco's previous visits were even earlier, when the original country-rock lineup, of which only frontman Jeff Tweedy and bassist John Stirratt remains, came to that same venue and San Juan Capistrano's Coach House in the mid-'90s. (Tweedy also was here in '99 with occasional outfit Golden Smog.)

So it had to be gratifying for local devotees, who may have spent years traveling the region following their favorites, to roll up Saturday evening at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine and witness highly memorable, guest-filled (Jackson Browne! Nancy Sinatra?!) and cross-pollinated performances from both bands ahead of the event's iconic capper, Bob Dylan.

Wilco leader Jeff Tweedy at the Hollywood Bowl. Photo: Kelly A. Swift, for the Register. Click the pic for more.

Last Friday night, at a hidden gem of a venue in Palm Desert few rock fans ever have reason to visit, Wilco, arguably the mightiest American band in action today, kicked off one final weekend of proper stateside touring behind its eighth album, The Whole Love. It had been a year and a day since the release of that disc, the latest in a lengthy run of start-to-finish winners from the heralded Chicago sextet, and mixed emotions at such a happy/sad occasion were evident from the moment they took the stage at the McCallum Theatre, immediately turning atmospheric with the percolating jam “Art of Almost.”

There were smiles from the start, sure, laced with detectable wistfulness about another trek drawing to a close. Yet at any given moment during at least the first third of that performance – up until the sunshine explosion that followed another mind-boggling Nels Cline solo in “Impossible Germany,” this bunch's “Free Bird,” by which point everyone was beaming – you could still sense looming trepidation. Not least because they were playing an unusual hall: “Doesn't it look like The Muppet Show?” leader Jeff Tweedy asked about the structure, reiterating an observation Pat Sansone, the multi-instrumentalist to his far left, had made at sound-check.

It hardly resembles an old vaudeville house, but the tall-not-deep McCallum, with its double balcony and opera boxes ringed with lights, does give off a certain variety-show vibe. Capacity is roughly 1,100 (there were nowhere near that many people on hand Friday) and sitting/standing inside it felt like, oh, watching a full-blown Wilco show just after shooting a spot on Letterman inside the chilly Ed Sullivan Theater.

Even the back row would have been near enough to carry on a loud conversation with the group, while the front section was so close that Tweedy had to remind overzealous phone-cam filmmakers that blatantly documenting every second of the show actually isn't cool. (“Is anybody aware that we don't really allow taping?” he asked, telling one egregious offender “I think you've got enough footage now.”)

Great news for Wilco fans: Following January's string of remarkable shows up and down the West Coast, including riveting performances at the Hollywood Palladium and the rarely used Los Angeles Theater, the Chicago band will return as summer turns to autumn to make its headlining debut at the Hollywood Bowl on Sept. 30.

Jeff Tweedy and the gang have been tapped by KCRW to fill one of its remaining World Festival dates at the landmark amphitheater, which Wilco last played in September 2003, when the group opened for R.E.M. and played two then-new songs, the epic Krautrock jam "Spiders (Kidsmoke)," which later appeared on 2004's A Ghost Is Born, plus the future B-side "Kicking Television," also found on the 2005 live album of the same name.

I took my father to his first Wilco show Friday night, at the Los Angeles Theater in downtown L.A. -- a rarely used, gorgeous edifice of a time gone by, with gold-tipped floral ceilings, a majestic staircase and dangling chandeliers in the opulent lobby, giving way to a wide-beamed theater space, massively tall and regal. It's the kind of place that frankly just isn't built any more, anywhere.

I took my dad not just because I thought he'd like the show, but because, in our family, the Los Angeles Theater holds a certain amount of history: my great grandfather, S. Charles Lee, designed the place, and I've been hearing about it since I was a kid. His legacy is now matriarchal, but my mother's not much of a music fan; my dad, on the other hand, introduced me to the Who and the Police and Bruce Springsteen. That end of the family is where music (rather than architecture) comes from, so it wasn't a surprise that -- after meeting about 15 friends and acquaintances in the lobby before the show, all of whom asked, nearly in disbelief, if it was really my father's first show -- he turned to me and said: "It seems to me like Wilco are the new Phish!"

Not quite, but they're getting close. Like that legendary jam band, Wilco's setlists are becoming increasingly unpredictable, and their fans -- many of whom went to many or maybe all of their four SoCal shows this past week (and will likely trek to Santa Barbara's Arlington Theatre to see them again on Feb. 10) -- hang on every note, with every twist duly noted and applauded.

So when they opened this final show of the local run with the slow-burning "Less Than You Think," which meanders into a gorgeous white-noise collage at its climax, the audience was along for a slow start to the ride. When "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" was transformed from a krautrock smash-along into an acoustic pontification, hinting at the end that the band was ready to make it explode without actually getting there, people went nutso. And when unhinged superhero guitarist Nels Cline unleashed during "Impossible Germany," each ecstatically expressed, quick-hit guitar burst was acknowledged with gasps and adoration.

Only took 'em nearly two decades, but Wilco finally touched down for its first performance at the historic Hollywood Palladium Wednesday night. Who knows if the setlist was specifically calculated to celebrate that occasion, but it certainly reflected a mostly even mix of songs spanning the Chicago outfit's eight-studio-album career, with only slightly more weight placed on material from last year's highly regarded The Whole Love.

Regardless, the evening brilliantly showcased Wilco's far-reaching creative abilities and, particularly, this lasting lineup's incredible chemistry, which has perceptibly accelerated the group's enthralling gallop with each album and tour since solidifying in 2004. In that sense, the lengthy run of 25 tunes was thoughtful to the extent that it was expertly designed to keep the sold-out, standing-only audience engaged and invigorated for the duration.

Case in point: a rollicking hat-trick intro that set aside "One Sunday Morning (Song for Jane Smiley's Boyfriend)", the slow-building, 12-minute noise-jam that was chosen to open the Copley Symphony Hall gig in San Diego on Sunday. (Read all about that show here.)

The first of the Palladium's three was "Art of Almost," a new track that opened with a trip-hop pulse and had frontman Jeff Tweedy rocking and bobbing trance-like until the piece's explosive, psych-rock, riff-heavy conclusion, bolstered by lead guitarist Nels Cline. Next came the much more lighthearted yet equally driving "I Might," a brief pop reprieve before the bold and erratic guitar heroics (Ã la Lou Reed) of "Bull Black Nova."

The latter song was the first example (among many this night) of a songwriting territory in which Wilco excels while most other experimental bands (except perhaps Radiohead, My Morning Jacket and a small handful of others) meander into unchecked fiddling. It's an uncanny ability to seamlessly transform a subtle, pretty song ("Born Alone," "Kamera," "Impossible Germany") into an eye-popping display of unhindered instrumentation – the sort of unearthly soundscapes that grip you, seep into your soul and fix an awe-inspired grin on your face, all before you've even registered that you're hearing the coda to the same catchy tune that began just minutes before. Its a rare talent that sets Wilco apart from the lump-sum of jam bands.

I loathe sounding like a skipping record, so I'll try my best to dispense with the usual Wilco = Greatest Band Alive blather that tends to gush out whenever I've just seen them. Just know: That's no mean feat when it's been 2½ years since their last Southern California appearances, notably at the Fox and the Wiltern.

Why do they do that? Why stay away for so long when so many other regions (not just Jeff Tweedy's beloved Chicago) benefit from leg after leg of touring? Surely it isn't just to hype anticipation – Wilco sells out everywhere they go, repeatedly and frequently. If they announced a string of Southwest dates in summer or fall immediately after their four shows this week, that next batch of tickets would disappear fast, too.

How do they do that? Smartly. Not counting very occasional Greek gigs, they typically don't come to town aiming for packed houses at such large places. Instead, they tend to spread out runs across a handful of 2,000-capacity venues, like the ones they play through Friday, when Wilco becomes one of few rock bands to test the volume limits of the downtown Los Angeles Theatre.

The sextet arrived Sunday night, the third gig after returning from winter break, for a Cali kickoff at Copley Symphony Hall, San Diego's Wiltern, and they were in cut-above form for two often blissful hours that were over much too soon. Copley has a strict cutoff at 11 p.m., so while recent shows have offered 18 or 19 songs in the main set, plus as many as eight or nine more in the encore, this performance served up 20 in the main, but only three quickies in the coda: the title track from their widely acclaimed new album The Whole Love, a gloriously happy “Heavy Metal Drummer” and a rapid, almost ramshackle rip through “Outtasite (Outta Mind).”

Tonight Tweedy appears in conversation with comedian Jeff Garlin at Largo, presumably with a bit of performance attached. Tuesday night Wilco headlines the Hollywood Palladium for the first time in their nearly 20-year history. Wednesday they return to the Wiltern. Then comes that rare L.A. Theatre show, followed by a Feb. 10 encore at the Arlington Theatre in Santa Barbara – the timing of which has me wondering if we might finally see Wilco perform at the Grammys, on Feb. 12. (At least they've got time off to go, it would seem.)

We kinda figured Wilco would add at least one more date to its stretch of Southern California dates in January and February, behind its latest album The Whole Love, widely acclaimed by virtually everyone (except Pitchfork, of course).

As with all other West Coast dates, including Feb. 10 at Arlington Theatre in Santa Barbara and performances in San Jose (Jan. 28) and Oakland (Jan. 31), Austin garage-rockers White Denim will open.

Tickets go on sale Nov. 18 at 10 a.m. Price is unavailable just yet, though it should be in the $45-$50 range. There is a strict two-ticket-per-household limit. Don't try for more or you'll wind up with canceled orders.

May 23rd, 2011, 12:45 pm by ROBERT KINSLER, FOR THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

There was truly something for everybody during Day 2 of the 14th annual Doheny Blues Festival in Dana Point.

For those who skipped church Sunday morning, legendary singer Mavis Staples delivered an inspired set steeped in gospel and old-school rhythm 'n' blues. For those looking for traditional roots, an acoustic set from B.B. & the Blues Shacks and a 90-minute celebration of pioneer Robert Johnson fit the bill. And for those seeking jaw-dropping guitar work, singer and six-string virtuoso Walter Trout produced that and more. Americana fans even got a sonic dish, thanks to a super-sized set from the original lineup of rockabilly revivalists the Blasters.

But more on all that in a bit, for the crowning set of the day was the much-anticipated return of John Fogerty. Those who caught his unforgettable set here in May 2007, his only other appearance at Doheny, need not have feared that lightning wouldn't strike twice: this headlining return Sunday evening conjured up the same magic of that night four years ago, then proved that his current show is even stronger.

Serving up a fast-paced set that clocked in at more than 90 minutes, Fogerty and his excellent band -- including singer-guitarist James Intveld and one of the world's best rock drummers, Kenny Aronoff -- tore through two dozen gems pulled equally from Creedence Clearwater Revival hits, his '80s comeback era and his recent country-folk material. And while plenty of people came to Doheny to celebrate the 100th birthday of Robert Johnson (the Mississippi bluesman would have hit the century mark on May 8), Fogerty honored Roy Orbison's 75th with a faithful and fitting version of "Oh, Pretty Woman."

Now nearly 65, Fogerty shows no signs of slowing down. He ran around the stage like a young man a third his age, tearing up on one guitar solo after another; his voice, too, remains more intact than any other rocker's from his era. To boot, his genuine personality brightens his performances in a way that defies detached rock-star cool that I think hurts many Hall of Famers in their twilight years.